Housing and Urban Planning

Examining politicians' gifts Virginia sets no limits on who can give how much to politicians but requires elected officials to disclose all gifts of more than $50. This year, in the wake of the scandal over gifts and loans to former Gov. Bob McDonnell and his family, the General Assembly revised the law to say legislators could not accept any single gift of more than $250 from anyone the legislator knows is a lobbyist, or wants or has a state contract. The cap does not apply to "intangible" gifts, such as trips or meals. The legislature added a clause saying legislators did not have to report gifts from personal friends. • Bart Thomasson: Disgusting. Too bad voting...

Related "Housing and Urban Planning" Articles

There is no easy answer for the housing affordability crisis in Los Angeles. But embracing growth rather than fighting it can create a city for everyone, not just the most fortunate among us.
For much of the last 40 years, planning in Los Angeles...

If you've read conservative blogs or magazines in the last month, you've probably seen something like this headline from Townhall — "HUD's 'Disparate Impact' War on Suburban America" — or this one from National Review — "Attention America's...

This week, City Council members will begin debating whether to make Los Angeles uglier. How? By eviscerating a proposed ordinance that would sharply curtail where new, bright, blinking digital billboards can be installed. Instead, they're considering...

On June 10, I cast the City Council's lone “no” vote on the $15-an-hour minimum wage proposal. While everyone agrees that there is genuine poverty in the city of Los Angeles, no wage increase can be high enough to offset the effect of job loss or...

We all know that San Francisco is booming, but it's still stunning to see the numbers. According to the Census Bureau, in just 20 years, from 1995 to 2015, the city added 100,000 people for a total population of almost 850,000. For comparison's sake,...

As we honor the dead on this Memorial Day, it's worth remembering as well the living veterans of military service who have no homes except sidewalk encampments or the occasional shelter bed, whose lives are so wracked by mental illness, addictions or...

In the early 1980s, as today, Los Angeles County residents who qualified for no other form of public assistance were given a few hundred dollars in monthly last-resort payments known as general relief. It was a lifeline to people down on their luck,...

Caught off guard by the surging popularity of the “sharing economy,” governments have struggled in recent years to adapt the rules they developed for taxi and limousine services to ride-sharing outfits such as Uber and Lyft. Now a new front is opening...

Los Angeles may be replacing New York City as the gentrification capital of the United States. The national media seem positively obsessed with the transformation of once little-known communities like Highland Park; gentrification battles in Boyle...

London has pubs. Munich has beer halls. Houston has outdoor honky-tonks. Denver has brewpubs. The drinking scene in Los Angeles is less easy to characterize. Like so much else in this city, it's diffuse, fragmented and characterized by extremes: There are...

Foreclosures in Southern California hit their highest level in two years in January, according to new data out Thursday. But market-watchers say it's more a matter of lenders clearing their books than a new wave of bad loans.
The number of homes...

Federal investigators have concluded that the massive downtown Los Angeles fire that consumed much of the Da Vinci apartment complex was arson, as The Times reported earlier this week. Which means that the Da Vinci and its developer, G.H. Palmer...

Maybe, just maybe, there are limits to what people will pay to live near San Francisco Bay.
Red-hot home prices in the Bay Area are showing signs of pleateauing, according to new figures out Thursday. The median price of a house in the nine-county region...

A city housing official was selected Friday to head the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, the city-county agency that manages $70 million a year in federal, state and local funding for shelters, housing and services for the very indigent.
Peter...

Home builders are taking a slightly dimmer view of the housing market, but they’re still generally bullish.
The National Assn. of Home Builders reported Thursday that its member confidence index slipped in October, ending a four-month run of gains that...

The world’s oldest piece of art is graffiti, Norway has new abstract money and it’s super-cool, an artist beats the IRS in court, and architect Moshe Safdie is totally over public-private space. Plus: architectural separated-at-birth, developments in...

Two major banks have agreed to originate a new 15-year mortgage under pilot programs aimed at low- and moderate-income borrowers.
In addition, the creators of the so-called Wealth Building Home Loan, which allows home buyers to build equity at a much...

A federal judge Thursday gave initial approval to a $3.3-million settlement of a suit brought by public housing residents alleging the city's Housing Authority illegally charged them for trash collection.
The suit, filed by the Western Center on Law...

Soil tests at the Jordan Downs housing project in Watts detected acceptable levels of lead that do not require cleanup, state toxic waste regulators have concluded.
Los Angeles housing officials conducted lead screening in July under orders from the...

A coalition of public and private agencies announced Tuesday that it is funneling $213 million to house 1,400 homeless people and to expand a tracking and placement system it hopes will end chronic and veteran homelessness in Los Angeles County over the...